Gorth

I hate to ruin a good conspiracy theory, but the Arecibo observatory had already been decommissioned and closed for a while. It was scheduled for demolition when the collapse happened. More likely because it didn't get any maintenance after its closure?

You're right. The notion that they need to cover their research costs is a bit outdated it seems. I thought it it used to be the reason, but you made me dig a bit. Turns out drug companies are just abusing a position of power. It's sheer price gouging these days with prices way beyond anything justifiable by the expenditure. If you thought banks were unethical... they got nothing on drug companies. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/03/drug-prices-high-cost-research-and-development/585253/ "The most telling data on a disconnect between drug prices and research costs has received almost no public attention. Peter Bach, a researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and his colleagues compared prices of the top 20 best-selling drugs in the United States to the prices in Europe and Canada. They found that the cumulative revenue from the price difference on just these 20 drugs more than covers all the drug research and development costs conducted by the 15 drug companies that make those drugs—and then some" "To be more precise, after accounting for the costs of all research—about $80 billion a year—drug companies had $40 billion more from the top 20 drugs alone, all of which went straight to profits, not research. More excess profit comes from the next 100 or 200 brand-name drugs."

@BruceVC I would expect the profit being limited to what they can justify as a reasonable margin of the manufacturing cost if tax payer money paid the research. Part of what you pay the pharmaceutical industry for is taking risks in their research (all the failures and dead ends). If tax payers take all the risk, profiting off that is not justifiable. Anyway, The UK hot on the heels of the Russians with vaccine distribution: A 90-year-old woman has become the first person to be given a Covid jab as part of the mass vaccination programme being rolled out across the UK. Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, said it was the "best early birthday present". https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55227325

You never know, he might surprised you. Like actually help funding research of vaccines and their distribution? Something Trump flat out refused (which is why for example the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine was funded by Germany and the EU)

Everything comes to an end eventually. Similar things happened to the Roman Republic. Even murdering Caesar didn't stop it from happening. Still, 200 years is not bad for a social experiment

All the best mate

Finished my first game of Xenonauts. Made a classic mistake of putting 3 of my troopers too close together around a corner at a doorway. All 3 taken out by a handgrenade. Decided to ignore the reactors and just soldier on, killing the boss and... was at a loss what to do next Turned out I didn't really need to do much. Got flooded by reapers, taking out my remaining 5 troopers (lost the tank int he boss chamber to cross fire) and decided to pull the pins of a few plasma grenades and call it a day rather than being converted into *that*. Then the game ended and declared me the winner Ok, I'll have to try this again. Now building bases with much better radar coverage of both northern and southern hemisphere and I know to stock up on the best armour and mag guns for the end fight. I should put some memorial plaques up on walls and houses in small villages, commemorating the brave heroes what departed earth, unknowingly *cough* going on a suicide mission to save earth and their commander!

Apparently the Chinese made a miscalculation somewhere and started refocusing their efforts. Xi's being busy... "In Wednesday's virtual discussion at the Aspen Institute think tank, Mr Evanina, chief of the Director of National Intelligence's counter-intelligence branch, said the Chinese had been attempting to meddle in the US efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine and recent American elections. He continued: "We've also seen an uptick, which was planned and we predicted, that China would now re-vector their influence campaigns to the new [Biden] administration." ... "He told the discussion that after the FBI conducted dozens of interviews with other individuals, "more than 1,000 PLA-affiliated Chinese researchers left the country". Mr Demers said "only the Chinese have the resources and ability and will" to conduct such alleged political and economic espionage and "other malign activity". He told the discussion these researchers were in addition to a group to 1,000 Chinese students and researchers whose visas were revoked by the US back in September." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55168633

Tim Minchin... one of the best live shows I ever attended

The UK are our guinea pigs pioneers! Distribution of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine to start in about a week (unless the subjects keels over in droves I suppose). If enough of the British survive the process, I might line up in the queue for a few shots myself here down under when it becomes available. Edit: source https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55145696

Yeah, the hypocrisy is real. The same Morrison that decided to sic the federal police on ABC news, raiding their offices and seizing their computers, trying to prevent the story from being revealed in the first place. Being called out by China of all things for his human rights and freedom of press record.

I bought this boxed (dvd) set a long time ago. Came with a tentacle stocking too, to hang up at a fireplace for the Great Old One to bring gifts edit: A photo of my seasonal tentacle and songbooks with lyrics for sing-a-long Chtulhu Carols:

Isn't it funny? They don't trust the Democrats to run a federal government, but a giant, well coordinated conspiracy what works with all the efficiency of a well oiled machinery involving more people than you can shake a stick at? Not a problem, they can organize that and do that during a single election period

Patients who appears to have gotten off "lightly" from Covid infections might still end up with life time damage https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55017301 "The risk of severe illness and death increases markedly for the over 60s. But if the trial discovers that the lung damage occurs across a wider age group and even in those not requiring admission to hospital "it would move the goalposts," according to Prof Gleeson. He believes the lung damage identified by the Xenon scans may be one of the factors behind long Covid, where people feel unwell for several months after infection.

Anyone remember the exploding whale in Fallout (or was it Fallout2)? This is the original

Xi doesn't take criticism very well

The downside of doing your first (casting) job too well?

Looks like BBQ all week long. I might skip it this weekend though as it's just going to be too hot for "hot food". Temperatures in the low 20's at night and late 30's in the afternoon (for those across the Pacific, that's 70-100f) More like a weekend of ice creams and cold drinks I think...

It always felt a bit a odd that he would cast Christian Hayden as Anakin. Compared to David Prowse, he's a little "twerp" with his only 183cm. Prowse was tall (198cm) and was cast for that very reason as Darth Vader. Roughly 6ft vs 6ft6 Hayden would stare at Prowse's chest if they were put next to each other.

Simple problems require simple solutions. Ask a child to solve the trolley dilemma! (save the one or save the many)

Listening to Heilung is like stepping into a time machine. The old world before the scourge of Christianity swept over northern Europe

Being a serial winner of elections is one way of escaping the prosecution for corruption. Of course, you need to create constant conflicts to stay in power. Looks like Ethiopia has joined the club of countries with leaders that wants to throw out the status quo and turn it into authoritarian states. After having subjugated the southern ethnic groups it was Tigray that got to feel the ambitions of a new Erdogan in the making.

Yeah, why won't they talk about that?

In local news... looks like we're heading for a hot summer. Temperatures have already broken existing records for this time of year. While 40-45C (104-113F) isn't unheard of, those normally occurs in the summer. Bear in mind, it's not summer yet, only spring down here. Makes you wonder how much combustible material is left after last years fire season, because if this keeps up, whatever is left is going to be very dry already. https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/weekend-scorcher-as-extreme-heatwave-lashes-parts-of-australia/news-story/4532b4585dd8eb6a88b2798e91749ae4

Getting to the end game in Xenonauts. I might change my team composition and gear a bit. The super heavy armour performed surprisingly well on my 2 heavy weapon guys. I might need a second guy with pistol and shield for door opening though. Didn't make it to the point where I have to decided to head for boss or take out reactors first I also wonder if I should drop the tank and add 4 more troopers instead. I know I'll probably build a few more wolf armour and stick some of the guys that currently have jackal armour in it. The amount incoming fire on this mission is ridiculous. Never mind that one of my heavy guys got killed in a burst of friendly fire